Gateway review of the Heat in Buildings Future Service Provision project information: EIR release

Information requested

Any information relating to the gateway review of the Heat in Buildings Future Service Provision project.

Response

As the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because exceptions under regulations 10(4)(e) (internal communications) and 11(2) (personal data) of the EIRs apply to that information. The reasons why these exceptions apply are explained in the Annex to this letter.

I can confirm that we have found 26 items to be in scope of your request but, in light of the above, we are only able to partially release information within these.

Annex

An exception applies

An exception under regulation 10(4)(e) (internal communications) of the EIRs applies to some of the information you have requested. This exception allows a Scottish public authority to withhold internal communications between officials, and communications which record discussions with third parties or which contain information received from third parties but are communicated internally. Preliminary and preparatory correspondence relating to the Gate 1 Review between officials and external advisers contracted via a government framework agreement, are deemed internal communications for the purposes of this EIR request.

This exception is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. We recognise that there is some public interest in releasing information as part of an open, transparent and accountable government. However, this is outweighed by the public interest in allowing government officials and external advisers contracted through a government framework agreement, to discuss assurance processes relating to internal projects without the need to disclose information which may be sensitive.

An exception under regulation 10(3) (personal data) of the EIRs applies to some of the information you have requested because it is personal data of a third party and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exception is not subject to the 'public interest test', so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

EIR 202500494079 - Information released - Documents

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